Reflections on parenting in a bi-cultural family … and other stuff

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Dreadlock action plan

AM’s hair is a mess. There, I’m not mincing words. I have nothing against dreadlocks, in fact I like them, but the dreads he’s acquired through wilful neglect of his hair are just dry and yucky. Phew, feels better to get that out in the open.

AM has promised his stepmother Obaapa that he will come to her salon & get his dreads sorted out, (i.e. combed out and re-done) but – well, that was a month ago and nothing’s happened.

Partly, as he’s the first to admit, this is due to laziness. But it’s also because he’s afraid he’ll have to cut them all off and have short hair again. And if it turns out that he does have nits somewhere in that birds nest, yes, that’s exactly what will happen, whether he likes it or not. However it may turn out alright … Obaapa recently spent a day combing out another mixed teen’s matted locks – so they could be corn-rowed, and today I happened upon a page with detailed instructions on “How to Comb Out Dredlocks”. It’s on a site that explains “How to do just about everything”, so the side bar lists related articles that I suspect may also be very helpful, such as “How to comb out a horse tail extension”, and “How to comb cats with matted hair”. 😉

I have combed out AM’s before, but it was baby-dreads compared to what he’s got now. Whether this new information will actually get AM as far as Obaapa’s salon is another matter. We’ll see. perhaps I just have to accept my Matty, (as opposed to Natty) Dread.

And on a slightly related note – I discovered an Australian site with info and products related to dreds: http://www.dreadlocks.com.au/index.php – what was fascinating was that almost all the models are white!